


when i'm with you i have fun!

by Swamp_Cat



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: F/M, M/M, Multi, everyone they know i guess, stay tuned for me beating the duffer brothers within an inch of their lives, stay tuned for women characters being characterized as people and not male accessories
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-15
Updated: 2017-11-15
Packaged: 2019-02-02 18:58:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,141
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12732369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Swamp_Cat/pseuds/Swamp_Cat
Summary: scooby doo gang. monster fighting. monster fighting recovery. love and communication. go.





	when i'm with you i have fun!

He hasn’t been there for them, this much is abundantly clear. The whole fiasco has made many things abundantly, excruciatingly,  _ crystal _ clear. 

How did he miss an  _ entire child? _

It’s nothing now, because everyone is fine. Everyone is _ safe, _ everyone is okay, except for that guy Bob who got fucking eaten by evil, slimy dogs. Even though he thought he was safe, even though he had almost made it through. 

Except for Barbara, who Steve didn’t even know, and now thinks he really should have known if he was going to put himself through all this trouble to know Nancy. 

Barb was so important to her. 

Every time she gives him a little more about her, just something about how she painted her nails, how she only ate the green gummy bears, the big gaping loss of it gets bigger in his head. It’s practically a roadblock now. 

How did he miss it? Barb got fucking eaten. Barb was just sitting, maybe a little sad, and then she was alone and afraid and terrified and eaten. He couldn’t help her.

But now, now there were people he could help, people he needed to help. Enough with graceless platitudes.  _ Finger lickin good, _ Jesus Christ.  _ King Steve _ is a farce. Probably was never real to begin with. 

 

And so, just Steve finds himself driving over to Jonathan Byers house, 10:00 pm on a Saturday. 

 

Why? Exactly the details, he himself doesn’t know. (although, objectively, because it is game night.) Only that in some crucial time period,  _ he wasn’t there for them,  _ and that that “them” now includes Jonathan fucking Byers and every child that his kid brother knows.  

A whole ‘nother kid, and he just missed it. She was living in the  _ woods  _ eating  _ eggos _ while he lounged in an empty house, fridge full of frozen leftovers. 

What a goddamn waste. 

 

He may have had an entire meltdown regarding this. Walls may have been kicked. Signed baseballs thrown, phone books set on fire in trash cans. 

It was time to start taking responsibility. 

 

-

 

Nancy read a poem recently, something that Will showed Jonathan, who showed her. Something persian- she had liked it-  _ lover of leaving.  _ She always liked that thought. 

 

What a joke, all those things people say about girls and settling down- like they aren’t all desperate to get into a car, anyway that they can. You don’t spend a life in building fantasy just to get buried in the same plot as your parents; no matter how it goes in the end. Nancy is a firm believer in  _ going _ , and she’s done everything she could to assure the most stable platform for acquiring it safely- the grades, the good behavior, the meticulous clothes, the  _ extracurriculars.  _ Now she can see what an act of fear it must have been. 

_ All  _ bullshit. Safety is fake. Leaving? That’s real. And love, love and all the people you plant it in? The people who plant it in you? How do you leave that? 

A question, surely, for the ages, for plato, for aristotle- but a better one was needed. A question that is for Nancy, who has seven lists of things to pack in case of various sudden emergencies leveling from  _ burglary  _ to  _ tornado.  _

How do you take them with you? 

 

-

 

She is working on it. She is angry at Jonathan, angry at Steve, angry at Barb, at Mike, at Eleven, at Hawkins, at the bitch Demogorgon who is somehow responsible for bringing the most important people in her life all under one roof for the first time. 

At some point of this silent rave, she sits up from her bed and turns the light on. She thinks that this probably isn’t anger. 

She starts taking notes. 

Organization is good: before her life started being the centerpiece of her brain at all times, Mike would catch her in the living room and tell her about the things Mr. Clark had taught the boys that day. Crazy stuff about Carl Sagan and the cosmos. One lesson had been about mathematics, how everything really is math, every shape crafted by geometry and physics, every sound and motion. 

At the time she just thought the man was trying to comfort their nursing rejections by various sport coaches, but as she grooms her thoughts into neat lines and graphic organizers, she changes her opinion. 

Organization is good. The best part being the theory that the universe, mainly, has it covered for her. 

She makes a page for Jonathan. There is real anger there, and so she takes a step back. To see the whole picture, you have to get far away. 

The things he said to her that day in the woods were disgusting. Hearing a boy try and tell you who you are was always awful, and every time you really liked a boy it just got worse. They don’t know when to stop, and they don’t think that they have too. She had said bad things, she knew, and he had said things that made her throat close up in fear. Things that sent her back to the miniscule middle school of Hawkins, the attacks of claustrophobia, the vomiting in the girls bathroom with every C on a history test. 

Things that made her feel like everything she had worked for was a joke, all because of some  _ words _ from a boy. A boy who would never know what it would feel like to have his parents cast a disapproving glance at every study night, all of the cloying  _ you’re still a virgin? _ And all of the scathing  _ fucking slut _ ’s, and the endless, endless eyes. 

Jonathan had his own problems, and she makes a note that he should stick to them. He doesn’t know shit about girls. 

Steve Harrington was one of her first self conscious exercises in feeling good. He might have illusions of somehow seducing her, but they both knew that it was all Nancy. If there was a single thing in her mind unsure about him, there wouldn’t be a  _ him  _ in her life at all. Not to say she was all peaches and cream about it- it was a carefully weighed risk. In the end, completely, utterly worth it.  _ Still _ worth it, she thought. But the love wasn’t the same kind of love, wouldn’t be, not ever again. 

She slid the paper away from her and crawled back into bed. Lights on, she closed her eyes and cradled the steadily thumping ache. 

 

-

 

“Okay, I have, like, so many boardgames-” 

 

“Steve!” 

 

“You guys, Steve is here-” 

 

There was delighted laughter and an oofing  _ thunk _ as Steve presumably gave way to the force of many children attempting to tackle him. Jonathan smiled from where he stood, washing the dishes from dinner. 

The chatter that followed was indistinct, but he was able to pick out Steve’s sarcastic low tones. A warm little thing danced in his chest. Steve’d missed the dinner, and although he promised too, Dustin had spent the whole night worrying he wouldn’t come. 

Jonathan had also been worried. Steve tended to be the life of the party for the kids, despite his reluctance. Everyone tended to feel- off- when not everyone was there. It made Jonathan short of breath, and oddly itchy. It made his mom start smoking, and made Hopper go quiet with loud, short outbursts every now and then. 

 

Halfway through a game of monopoly that Max was viciously winning, a harried Nancy burst through the front door, arms laden in shopping bags. Everyone in the room yelped and/or jumped a foot in the air, but the excitement swiftly turned warm as whoops of joy erupted from Will, Eleven and Lucas. Nancy was the mediator for them, since they tended to lean towards “sarcastic reason”, while Steve’s little monsters were of the “chaotic charm” sort of category. 

 

Nancy pours out a smile of sunbeams from somewhere in her tired abdomen, and Jonathan just wants to collapse under it. Every kid but Max, who is guarding her hoard of paper money,  gets up to heckle her.

 

Hot tears gather gently behind Jonathans eyes, and he smiles at the carpet on which he’s lying.

The kids are gabbing on about how late she is, how Jonathan and Steve keep brooding like no one else can tell, how bad dinner tasted but how much fun they had. 

When the spilling feeling is gone, he looks up again. 

Steve is looking right back at him, grin splitting his face, actually literally, a small cut on his upper lip looks like it’s bleeding again. Jonathan laughs out loud. The warm dancing thing is everywhere up his torso now, it’s his stomach and heart and lungs and liver and veins. The fondness sets hands on his shoulders as Nancy takes her seat between Steve and Max. 

 

“So,” she says. “Who’s winning?” 

 

-

 

Nancy was so tired. Like, Jesus, she just can’t do shit without someone getting up her ass about it. Barb just  _ can’t believe she likes Steve Harrington _ , the fucking  _ look _ Jonathan gives her when she touches him, Steve's sad little pity smiles. Why? Why does she do any of the things she does?

Because she fucking wants to. It’s not that complicated. There isn’t an engineered algorithm inside her head that leads her to love Jonathan, to love Steve, to ignore Mike, to take pre calc in freshman year. Well, pre calc was more of a premeditated thing, but still. Come  _ on.  _

 

They still surprise her with their depth. Steve, who doesn’t know what morse code is, holed up in the library surrounded by entomology books.  _ I just saw the coolest praying mantis in my garden,  _ he explained. Jonathan, who “doesn’t have trust issues”, curled up in the corner of his room and wearing the softest woven jacket, headphones over his ears. 

Just, eyes closed, out of the world. Softness always followed him, somehow, but in the jacket he seemed to just swim in it. 

She’d never seen that jacket before, but she liked it. When she’d told him so, he’d jolted as though caught lying. 

 

She thinks she should tell Steve and Jonathan about the whole writing it out thing. They would benefit, like, a lot. Sometimes the sheer power of their own denial just smacks her in the face. 

How do you live like that? There are lies everywhere, why put more into your own head? A safety precaution, probably, but then again- safety is fake, and the truth has always been there. 

 

She wants to  _ kill _ that crazy weird balding guy. Sure, everyone knows the truth about Barb now, but  _ fuck _ that guy. 

She supposes that’s the point. Anger has the most supreme pushing power, and Nancy has never backed down from a challenge before. The boys are running out of dire reasons to visit each other and her. 

 

Whose retreating now, huh?   
  


-

 

It’s half the only okay thing to ever happen to him, and half the least okay thing to be happening ever, oh god, oh fuck, oh jesus. 

Nancy is driving his car, Jonathan in the passenger, and him all by his lonesome in the backseat. Just. 

Watching. 

 

Jonathan is gripping the dashboard, white knuckled, and giving very toned down instructions through his teeth. Steve answers another question on his biology homework. Nancy has her lower lip jutted out, displaying her scariest possible single minded concentration. Steve culls the wayward impulse to bite it. Not because it isn’t his place, (which it isn’t. Is? Not?)  but because he’d come out of that altercation missing teeth. 

 

Jonathan makes a particular keening sound at another concerning jolt of the vehicle, and Steve pats his back. He wants to touch his bare neck. 

This part is confusing. 

The worst of it/best of it is- this feeling isn’t some wet dream, it isn’t even an impulse. It’s a  _ want. _ Steve knows Jonathan, and he wants to put his palm all the way across his neck, and then slide it down, over just skin. He wants to hook his chin over his shoulder and just keep himself against him, while Jonathan, fucking, develops photos or something. It's not even  _ sexual.  _ Well- not all of it. He just has to accept that there’s, if anything, only an indistinct gradient of where the feeling slips from  _ best friend saved my life makes me feel safe, feels like home someone I trust someone who knows me _ to  _ please kiss me until I can’t remember anything.  _

He is working on it. 

Right now, he leans his back against Jonathan's seat and reads about cellular respiration. Jonathan mumbles something about seatbelts, and Steve just pats him again. The awkward angle means it's more of a touch, but it doesn’t feel awkward. Nancy glances at them and smiles, before cursing and swerving the car in a way that makes both Steve and Jonathan shriek. 

 

-

 

Not to sound like a Bronte novel, but Nancy is sure that this feeling is new. It is an all-encompassing warmth, a love, something that’s been defying all forms of doubt so far. Its _startling._ Simple things: Jonathan driving, Nancy and Steve sitting in the backseat sharing a milkshake. The mixtapes Jonathan discreetly leaves in what she knows is both her and Steve’s rooms, the mixed-up clothing, the _looks._ They are not like the other looks. She decides to fall into it, head first. 

Steve runs his knuckles across her shoulders and neck, slow and languid. She breathes in a deep sigh, pushes it out al-l-l-ll slow. There is static on the small TV in the living room of the Byer’s home, pushing through the paper thin walls and into their small nest. 

 

Jonathan pushes further into her, nuzzling absentmindedly on her sweater. They’re in Jonathan’s room, and he’d stolen all the old christmas lights to line his walls. The effect was more soothing than anyone expected, but Jonathan was always good with that kind of stuff- mood lighting. It reminded her of a dark room, and she wondered if that was part of what made him like photography so much. She gently twisted a lock of his hair, watching the strands spiral. 

The Clash glanced off the walls and into the knots coiling Nancy’s neck, unwinding her. It has been a long, straining day, and this is like melting.  

Steve blows out a thick cloud of smoke, and then hands the joint that Jonathan wrapped for them ( _ rolled, Nancy _ ) back off to her. It’s not lit anymore, and her fingers fumble with the lighter for a little bit, forgetful. Her thumb just really does not want to do this. She tries again, then makes a little noise, then realizes nobody can understand the complex meaning of her little noises but her. 

 

“Jo,” she nudges Jonathan. “Do the- the thing. Do the thing.” 

He blinks at her sleepily, then blinks at the joint sleepily. A laugh bubbles out of Nancy’s chest. Sitting up a little bit, he takes the joint from her and makes a little noise of his own, before putting it in his mouth and lighting it. Nancy giggles as he breathes in, pushing at him with her socked foot from her cave in Steve’s arm. 

 

“No, for me, for me!” She’s breathless with dumb laughter. She can feel Steve shaking under her too, laughing as he watches the two of them. Jo flaps his arms a bit in fake-panic before letting all the smoke out with his laughter, but then he pulls it into his mouth again, breaths in deep, and puts it out. 

 

He’s all cushy-warm and cozy when he leans into Nancy, his elbow by her thigh, and everything is so light it could float. The special jacket (Steve’s coined term) drapes him in halos. 

He gets closer, until their noses are almost touching. Nancy closes her eyes when his go fuzzy in her vision. Theres light breath on her lips, and then a tap at her knee, so she opens her mouth and breathes in the smoke from Jonathan’s. The smoke, as usual, is overwhelming and scratchy, so she coughs it right back into his face. He only laughs more. She watches it go through his shoulders and chest. 

 

Eventually, they tumble onto Steve together. Jonathan is tucked into the crook of his left arm, face turned in, arm reaching across Steve’s chest and holding Nancy’s hand where she rests on the other side of him. 

Their most benevolent pillow is smiling dopily down at them, his eyes fuzzy and so sweet. There’s a tiny smudge of lipstick above his right eyebrow. 

Steve is really funny when he gets stoned, always knows how to make them laugh the hardest. He’s probably sacrificed the very last scrap of his dignity while pulling dumb stunts to make Nancy and Jonathan laugh. She can barely think, sometimes, with all the goodness of it. 

Nancy pokes Jo’s captured hand, follows his heartline and lifeline and a couple lines she makes her own name for. ( _ Hours spent taking a warm bath line, traffic line. _ )

Before he collapsed, Jonathan had switched them too a Car's album, and it now buzzes through the room. The sun set two hours ago, and the reddish twinkling lights make the room warm. Steve cards his hand through Jo’s hair gently, thinking about bugs and baseball bats and soft woven coats. Nancy works on tugging a blanket stuck under Steve’s legs around all of them, without dislodging her hard earning cozy head leaning position. 

it’s a quest. 

Jonathan murmurs something in his sleep and burrows even tighter into Steve, who looks into Nancy’s eyes wearing the utmost helpless look in his brows. Nancy smiles at him and pats his chest. They fall asleep just like this. 

 

_

 

“I guess I just have a lot of trouble understanding people, if they don’t say exactly what they mean. It’s- stupid, I feel stupid about it. Like there's something everyone else is getting that I just  _ can’t.”  _

 

“No that’s, that's definitely not dumb.” Nancy makes a sharp right turn, and they jostle into one another a little bit. Steve’s thumb brushes Jonathan’s pinkie, which he notices, distinctly. 

 

“I mean, people are assholes. There's this whole- whole thing where everyone needs to act “right”, or fucking whatever, or they get- like- eaten. Fucking  _ eaten _ .” 

 

“It’s bullshit. All the people who say so are actually evil. Like, would leave you to die evil.” 

 

“Steve,” Nancy reprimanded. “I think a lot of people, some of them  _ in this car,  _ may have at some point furthered that belief out of ignorance or coercion. That does not make them evil.” 

 

Steve looks at Jonathan. “God, she’s a fucking genius,” he sighs melodramatically, rolling his eyes heavenward. “How did I ever end up within arms reach of her? Of a  _ Goddess?”  _

 

“ _ Steve _ Harrington.” 

 

_

  
  


“Oh holy shit.” 

 

_

 

**Author's Note:**

> this is going to be multi-chaptered, that last bit was steve realizing hes in love with all of them, hes feeling the sexual electricty and hes not equipped


End file.
